Taxation Without Representation - 1753 Words

Oppressors or Bullies? Taxation Without Representation Why weren’t the thirteen colonies willing to abide by England’s laws? While some people were horrified with the Stamp Act, others were completely accepting of this new act. Janis Herbert stated in her book, The American Revolution for Kids, that after the French and Indian War, England had many debts, which obviously needed to be paid (3). England’s Parliament decided the American colonists needed to pay their debts for them. England went about this matter by raising taxes and requiring a stamp for fifty different documents (Gale Encyclopedia Par. 2). Since America was not yet a country, and had no representation, they were trapped with the laws Parliament passed. Even though England was trying to pay off their debts from the French Indian War, they went about it the wrong way, because they expected the American colonists to pay by increased tax dollars. This is an example of taxation without representation, because the Ame rican colonists didnt have representatives, or the opportunity to vote. To help pay off their debt, England scheduled the initiation of the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on fifty different documents, on November 1, 1765 (Gale Par. 2; Brindell 13). This act was to put a tax â€Å"upon every paper commonly called a pamphlet and upon every newspaper† (Copeland 193). Because the Stamp Act was an internal tax, which meant this tax law was only enforced in America, this made the colonists evenShow MoreRelatedDemocracy : No Taxation Without Representation961 Words   |  4 Pagesand participate in democracy. This notion of democracy slowly evolved out of different revolutions and ideas. We saw great leaps forward in in the evolution of democracy during the US revolution which was exemplified by the cry of: â€Å"No taxation without representation.† In the French revolution, in which there has been so much has studied about, is another example of inequality helping democrat ization. In the modern era, we have seen the Arab spring rise and fall, with some countries making modest reformsRead MoreNo Taxation without Representation Essay1851 Words   |  8 PagesTaxation is an extremely controversial topic in the United States because in order to continue to enjoy the American comforts of healthcare, social security, national and neighborhood defense, and regulated clean water and air, to name a few, we continue to increase the demands of our government without wanting to pay for the supply of services. Remember, money is a currency and can be used to consume, invest, save, pay loans (including credit cards), or pay taxes. If asking various families whatRead MoreNo Taxation Without Representation- Revolutionary Movement?1832 Words   |  8 PagesThe demand for no taxation without representation was the primary force motivating the American revolutionary movement, and for many it became a symbol for democracy. Throughout the late 18th century, the Britis h colony of America was oppressed by Parliament from across the pond. This oppression included unequal rights compared to English citizens that lived on the mainland, unneeded taxation, and no representation in Parliament, which resulted in many laws that were unfavorable to the AmericanRead MoreNo Taxation Without Representation On Future Americans1327 Words   |  6 PagesIt is a core founding principle of our nation that there will be no taxation without representation. The current fiscal actions of our nation will pass the burden on to future generations, and they will be the ones required to pay for today’s spending. Without a say in this fiscal burden being passed to them, the lack of a balanced budget is in effect, taxation without representation on future Americans. My proposed amendment to the United States Constitution would create a requirement for a balancedRead MoreEssay on The Injustices of the Crown719 Words   |  3 Pageswhich they grumbled to each other i n secret. Taxation without representation; this was just one of many, many grievances inflicted upon the American colonists, and one which the colonists would eventually fight against with the mass-dumping of tea in the Boston Tea Party. In short, it meant that the colonists were to pay taxes for all of the imports that the mother country wished to tax the colonists for. â€Å"Without representation† meant that the British Parliament would tax the colonistsRead MoreThe Creation Of The United States Of America981 Words   |  4 Pagescolonist considered more taxation with out representation. The Townshend program’s attempt to get a grip on the colonies failed. The colonist were rebellious and organized boycotts on British products. With the tension between the colonies and Great Britain reaching a breaking point the British pass the Tea Act. This act angered the colonists for quite a few reasons but the most important thing it did was reignite the colonist’ s anger for taxation without representation. This soon led to the famousRead MoreA History of the World in 6 Glasses Study Questions Essay1485 Words   |  6 Pagespurposes as a pain killer. â€Å"Spirits in the Colonial Period† 1. The origin of distilled spirits came from the Arabs. 2. The connection between spirits and colonization is that, spirits became an economic good of great importance that with their taxation and control became matters of high political importance and helped determine the course of history. 3. The production of spirits is connected to slavery because the African slavers who supplied the Europeans with slaves, most valued spirits asRead MoreJames Otis s No Taxation Without Representation Essay1630 Words   |  7 Pages1763. In The Rights of British Colonies Asserted and Proved James Otis outlines his perspectives on government s rights and the rights of the people , these perspectives revolutionized colonial opinions and made famous the quote† no taxation without representation.† James Otis was born in 1725 and died in 1783 during that time he lived an eventful and meaningful life. James Otis graduated from Harvard in 1743 and became a successful lawyer in Boston, his experience in law played a largeRead MoreAmerica At The Foundation Was Formed On The Basis Of No Taxation Without Representation2572 Words   |  11 Pages America at the foundation was formed on the basis of no taxation without representation. How then did we become a country so accepting of higher taxes and government reliance? Breaking it down to the simplest arguments there can be two main points, either taxes are beneficial or taxes are harmful. Taxes and high taxes especially in general are always going to be harmful. If the government is coming at the issue in a way that frames them as a form of caring they are lying. Let’s get one thing straightRead MoreTaxation W/O Representation803 Words   |  4 PagesThe colonists strongly desired independence and separation fro m Britain once taxation without representation was imposed on them. The colonies struggled to earn their representation in the Parliament of their mother country. They were turned down repeatedly and this caused huge issues for the colonists; it was the complete reason for the Revolutionary War. Therefore, the demand for no taxation without representation was the primary force to motivate America against Britain and it was also a symbol

Similarities and Differences between Greek and Roman Gods

Have you ever wondered where things in our everyday lives get their names from? Well the answer could be from Greek or Roman gods. So many things are indeed named after the gods. Like the car company Mercury or the shoe company Nike. There are many gods in both mythologies but this essay will talk about 12 of them, six gods from Greek mythology and six gods from Roman mythology. Each god will have their own corresponding god from the other mythology. Although they might be from different mythologies in essence they are all very similar. If this is an essay about the similarities and difference between the Greek and Roman gods then it would only make sense to start with the kings of the gods, Zeus and Jupiter. They are both the rulers†¦show more content†¦Neptune is better known as Neptune Equester, god of horses and horse racing. Because the Greeks did so many things on the sea they needed Poseidon to protect them. But the Romans were more based around war and the like. So t hey were more focused on praying to the god of war Mars. The gods of war are Ares from Greek mythology and Mars from Roman mythology. There are some major differences between these gods, a lot more than the others. Aries for one was a god to be feared because he was the god of war, bloodshed, and murder that and he just liked to watch mortals kill each other. When he is on the battle field he is usually accompanied by some gnarly people. â€Å"He was followed into battle by Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror), two lesser gods who sometimes are said to be his sons. He was also followed by the goddesses Eris (Strife) and Enyo (Horror)† (â€Å"Encyclopedia Mythica† n.d.) Mars on the other hand was kind of like Ares and Athena put together because he was a god of war and its tactics. Mars was also the god of fertility of crops. Mars is said to have fathered the founders of Rome and the Roman people thus the Romans styled themselves after him. No Greek would be caught dead trying to stylize themselves after Ares. Both of them are po rtrayed as being fully armored. But these warriors needed something to protect and that was the queens of the gods. The queens of the gods were Juno from Roman Mythology and Hera from Greek mythology. TheyShow MoreRelatedGreek And Roman Mythology881 Words   |  4 PagesGreek and Roman Mythology Since the dawn of time, different societies have worshiped gods, believing in their power and being afraid of their fury. People have prayed and made sacrifices in order to achieve the gods mercy and generosity. They believed that, if the gods are in good mood, they will provide people with good weather conditions for growing crops. People needed explanations for different natural phenomena, such as rain, drought, lightning, thunder and earthquake. So, ancient people believedRead MoreThe Religious And Social Differences Between Ancient Greece And Rome Essay1423 Words   |  6 PagesThe Religious and Social Differences between Ancient Greece and Rome In modern day, everyone tends to think of the Roman gods when they think of Greece, or when they think of the ancient gods in general. Juno versus Hera, Jupiter versus Zeus, and Mars versus Ares are some examples of their different and separate deities; not just their names, but their personalities as well. There are many differences between the two religions, as well as differences between each culture’s social standings. NotRead MoreSimilarities And Differences Between Greece And Rome1457 Words   |  6 Pagesfeel There are a variety of vocal points when bringing up similarities and differences between Greece and Rome. The two vocal points I feel strongly about are both their military and leadership. When talking about their militaries we have two of the strongest forces to ever grace the earth. When talking about their respective cultures we are talking about beliefs that spread nationwide. These are the similarities and differences between Greece and Rome. If there was anything that Rome andRead MoreThe Similarities Of The Vedic And Greco-Romans758 Words   |  4 PagesVedic and Greco-Romans Although the though the two religions were worlds apart, numerous features of both religions seemed no different from one another. Through time, there has been many theories as to how this ancient Hindu religion could share so much resemblance to the ancient Greeks. Many traits of the similarities include: the ancient language of Sanskrit and Greek writings, the connections in their polytheistic deities, and even in the stories and legends of the two separate religions. WesternRead MoreComparing Roman And Greek Mythology1354 Words   |  6 Pages Roman Vs. Greek Mythology Roman and Greek mythology are full of complexities. Much of Greek and Roman everyday life revolved around these myths. Many similarities are obvious between Roman and Greek mythology because the Romans borrowed a significant amount of their myths and gods from the Greeks. Although Roman and Greek mythology have a few components in common, they also have many various aspects that cause differences in their cultures. First of all; values, morals, traditionsRead MoreGreek And Roman Ideas778 Words   |  4 Pages Greek and Roman Ideals When considering the ancient Greek and Roman ideals you can see the distinct similarities in their art, government, monotheism, and architecture. The Romans duplicated many of the Greek styles and modified them to suit their lifestyles. Greece and Rome influences can be seen in art today with the use of concepts, techniques, and styles that were founded by the Greek classical ideal. These include techniques for carving sculptures and the construction of massive metropolitanRead More Roman And Greek Gods Essay example1482 Words   |  6 PagesRoman and Greek Gods It has been known that the Romans and the Greeks have had many interactions with each other, whether it would be due to trading or just plain traveling, the stories of their myths have crossed each other in one way or another. This is may be the reason why there are many similarities between Greek and Roman Mythology. Even though a Greek god or goddess may have a different name in Roman Mythology they still performed similar tasks and were worshiped for similar reasons.Read More A Comparison of the Divine in Gilgamesh, the Old Testament of the Bible, and Metamorphoses1132 Words   |  5 PagesMiddle-easterners and Romans had very different beliefs about the divine. For example, Hebrews are monotheistic, while Middle-easterners and Greco-Romans of early time periods believe in many gods. Writings from the ancient time period sketch these differences, as well as the many similarities between religious beliefs. The Old Testament is an excellent reference depicting Hebrew beliefs, while Gilgamesh outlines many Middle-eastern beliefs, and The Metamorphoses shows readers many ancient Greco-Roman beliefsRead MoreAncient Greek And Ancient Roman Cities876 Words   |  4 Pages There are many similarities between Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman cities, mainly because Roman cities were highly influenced by the Greek. Roman culture reflects the Greek’s culture, their mythologies are closely related and so are the characteristics of the architecture. From one grew the forms of the other and the result created were two beautiful cities with massive amounts of history. This paper will go over the three main areas in which Greeks influenced the Romans the most. The firstRead MoreSimilarities And Differences Between Cultures And Societies902 Words   |  4 PagesThe similarities and differences between cultures and societies is what makes the world like it is today. Cultures developed independently, but as time went on and communication technology evolved, people b egan to share their culture’s ideas on religion, political philosophy, and medicinal practices. Cultures started to feed off of and evolve from one another, as highlighted in the similarities in ideals across the world. Not all countries adopted the same ideas though, as evident by the many differences

Emily Grierson Motive To Kill Homer Barron Essay Example For Students

Emily Grierson Motive To Kill Homer Barron Essay William Faulkners A Rose for Emily is an intriguing tale of the life and death of Emily Grierson, who ends up killing her male companion, Homer Barron. A motive is not stated by the narrator, but when read critically a motive can be found. Several Literary critics have proposed different motives of why Emily Grierson killed Homer Barron. Some say that Homer was going to jilt Emily. Although homer was the not the marrying type, there is no evidence that homer was going to leave her. Another motive was that homer was gay. This motive was taken out of context; homer enjoyed being a bachelor, drinking with the guys at the local bar. Homer filled the void left by her Father, Mr. Grierson, since Homer and Mr. Grierson were very similar character. Yet, Homer probably never intended to marry Emily right away, since he was not the marrying type. Emily could not deal with another man leaving her alone. What can also be taken into consideration was that Emily had an image and the Grierson famil y name to uphold. I believe that Emily Griersons motive to kill Homer Barron is because Emily rather had been with a dead man instead of being by herself, why does Emily kill Homer. Mr. Grierson was from the old south. Not much was said about him directly. An image by the narrator describes Mr. Grierson overprotecting Emily; Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door(308) The Grierson were an upper class family in the town of Jefferson. He scared away any person trying to ask out Emily on a date. He prevented Emily to experience a normal life. All Mr. Grierson wanted was for Emily to stay as his housekeeper. In his critical essay, Jack Scherting uses Sigmund Freud Freudian Principal of Oedipal to describe Emilys relationship and attachment with her father. Emilys father, Mr. Grierson, compressed Emily sexual nature and in return Emily grows attach to him. So when Mr. Grierson dies, Emily rejects the idea of her father being dead. He writes that Emilys subsequent behavior clearly shows that the death of her father was a piece of reality disavowed by her ego. (400) When the women of Jefferson go to pay respect, Emily responds by saying that her father was not dead.(308) She of course was in denial. For three whole days, she preserved Mr. Grierson body in their home. Emily shortly after broke down after every person in town tried to persuade her to let go of Mr. Griersons body. Scherting says that Emily simply just didnt broke down he explains that Faulkners use of the phrase broke down does not mean Emily consciously acknowledged the reality of her fathers deathSignaled a retreat from that reality into the defenses of her own psyche. Emily regressed into her childhood. (400) In short, Emily sort of became this orphan who needed a male wh o resembled her father. It is not a surprise as Scherting says that Miss Emilys libidinal attachment to her father was soon transferred to a surrogate male. (401) That male of course was Homer Barron. Homer Barron was a northerner foreman for a construction company who came to Jefferson to build sidewalks and roadways. Homer seemed to have been a hated person yet a popular person to gossip about. He was the center of attention whenever you heard a lot of laughing about the square, Homer Barron would be in the center of the group.(309) He was seen around town with Emily on Sundays. This was Emilys first relationship after all, Emily was past her prime, she was past 30 years old and forbidden to be involved with the opposite sex due to her father. Homer was basically her first love. He was a strong male figure that filled the void left by her father, Mr. Grierson. Yet like most bachelors, Homer Barron was a guy. Homer liked to hang out with the guys and drink and such. He was not the marrying type. Homer and Mr. Grierson could be considered similar. Scherting point out that both were described to be strong willed men, and in separate scenes, both are described holding horsewhips.(40 1) .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 , .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .postImageUrl , .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 , .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:hover , .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:visited , .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:active { border:0!important; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:active , .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291 .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u698d6783337ef7329314567f2a423291:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: How does Charles Dickens use the ghost story genre to provoke fear in both the Victorian and modern reader of The Signalman EssayEmily Grierson represented the old south in a new era where old traditions where fading away, the last of a dying breed. The men admired her and the women talked about her. She was Jeffersons modern day celebrity in a sense. And like any other celebrity she was look at to set an example, as well as to serve as a topic of gossip. Dating Homer, a northerner, of course was not normal in the southern tradition nor would have it been pleasing to the Grierson family image. As Emily and Homer were continued to be seen in public, the gossip continued. Th e women of Jefferson were somewhat disgusted with their relationship. They sent the minister to guide Emily, which did not work. The next step was to call on the Grierson relatives that resided in Alabama. The Grierson family was considered the upper class of the town of Jefferson. Homer, a Yankee from the north, would be displeasing to the familys name. Emily and her father lived on a select street as Faulkner described. The Griersons were looked down upon, almost hated for the way they thought about their status as upper class, the town believed that the Griersons held themselves for a little too high for what they really were. Faulkner never included what exactly happen when Emilys relatives came to visit. The relatives were only described to be even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been. Scherting came to a conclusion that it was logical to assume that they forced her to make a choice: either marry Homer or stop carrying on with him.(402) What drives Emily to kill homer? Sexual Politics plays another factor. The fact that not only did Mr. Grierson prevented her to interact with the opposite sex; he made her a victim and dominated her all throughout her life. The Town also played a part in sexual Politics. The town men felt sorry for her, especially after she refused to acknowledge her fathers death. Colonel Sartoris even went as far as letting her live tax free. They let Emily purchase the rat poison, which she used to murder Homer Barron. The town also did not confront her on the stench that several neighbors complained about, which in reality was the decaying corpse of Homer Barron. Instead they covered up the stench with lime. Emily has always been referred to Miss Emily Grierson; Judith Fetterley says her status as a lady is a cage from which she cannot escape. To them she is always Miss Emily; she is never referred to and never thought as otherwise.(Fetterley) Emily was no longer dependent of her father Mr. Grierson nor married. The Jefferson residents treated Emily as a burden, therefore allowed her to do whatever she wanted. Fetterley continue to say Not only is A rose for Emily a supreme analysis of what men do to women by making them ladies; it is also an exposure of how this act in turn defines and recoils upon men.(Fetterley) Since Homer was a bachelor and not ready to marry Emily, the only way she could have him and at the same not disgracing the family name by marrying a northerner or go against southern tradition was to kill Homer. That way she could have homer and not be alone, while still upholding her image and the Griersons family name. Emily probably killed Homer with rat poison although it is not stated how exactly homer was killed. All is known is that Homer entered through the kitchen door and never came out. In the end, even if Emily motive was to kill homer, Homer is not the victim. It is Emily who is the victim. Emily slept next to homer for 40 years in the upstairs bedroom. After her death, it is at that moment when the men of Jefferson break down the shut door of the upstairs bedroom and see the remains of Homer, that they realize what harm was done to Emily. I think William Faulkner appropriately titled this story A rose for Emily simply to give compassion to Emily, since no one ever gave it to her.

International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction Essay Example

International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction Essay Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of International Management International diversi? cation and the market value of new product introduction Chi-Feng Wang a,1, Li-Yu Chen b,? , Shao-Chi Chang c,2 a b c Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan Department of Management, Fo Guang University, Taiwan Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan article info Article history: Received 11 January 2011 Received in revised form 31 March 2011 Accepted 31 March 2011 Available online 2 May 2011 Keywords: International diversi? cation New product introduction Technological capability Marketing capability Event study abstract Although previous studies on international diversification are plentiful, they mainly focus on the effect of international diversification on overall firm performance, and the results are mixed. This study extends this line of research and explores the impact of international diversification on new product performance. Specifically, we ask if international diversification explains the stock market reactions to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. We find an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversification and the announcement returns of NPIs, revealing that the market value of NPIs initially improves and then declines with increasing international diversification. The results also show that intangible assets, such as technological and marketing capabilities, positively moderate the relationship between international diversification and the market value of NPIs. We will write a custom essay sample on International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product Introduction specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Our study not only highlights the importance of considering both sides of international diversification in affecting investors assessments of corporate new product strategies, but also shows the possibility of internal capabilities in changing the fixed relationship between international diversification and the market value of new products.  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction According to the theory of foreign direct investment (FDI) (Caves, 1996; Dunning, 1988; Hymer, 1976) and portfolio theory (Jacquillat and Solnik, 1978; Lessard, 1973, 1976; Solnik, 1974), international diversi? ation will lead to higher ? rm value. However, existing studies examining the impact of international diversi? cation on ? rm performance have yielded inconclusive results. The results on the relationship between international diversi? cation and ? rm performance has been found to be positive (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Grant, 1987; Rugman et al. , 2008), negative (Collins, 1990; Z aheer and Mosakowski, 1997), U-shaped (Capar and Kotabe, 2003; Gaur and Kumar, 2009; Lu and Beamish, 2001), inverted-U-shaped (Brock et al. , 2006; Garbe and Richter, 2009; Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Hitt et al. 1997) and horizontal-S-shaped (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). To better understand the in? uence of international diversi? cation, we extend this line of research by studying the impact of international diversi? cation on new product performance. Speci? cally, we test if international diversi? cation explains the stock ? Corresponding author at: Present address: Department of Management, Fo Guang University, No. 160, Linwei Rd. , Jiaosi, Yilan County 26247, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 3 9871000 23816. E-mail addresses: [emailprotected] net. tw (C. -F. Wang), [emailprotected] fgu. edu. w (L. -Y. Chen), [emailprotected] ncku. edu. tw (S. -C. Chang). 1 Present address: Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, No. 123, University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 5 53426015245. 2 Present address: Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, 701, Tainan, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 6 275757553506. 1075-4253/$ – see front matter  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10. 1016/j. intman. 2011. 03. 002 334 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 arket responses to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. NPIs are an important dimension of innovation output. 3 Firms with the ability to introduce new products are signaled as those with the opportunity for differentiation and future earnings (Chaney et al. , 1991; Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In order to improve the performance of NPIs, many ? rms are engaged in international diversi? cation activities (Kogut and Zander, 1993; Peng and Wang, 2000). Previous stud ies have documented that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? s and costs (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). We suggest that these bene? ts and costs might create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms to develop new products, and hence in? uence investors assessment of the new products introduced by ? rms. International diversi? cation may have positive effects on NPIs. For example, it allows ? rms to reach outside their domestic boundaries, providing them with more opportunities to gain new ideas in terms of the types of new products that can be developed (Hitt et al. , 1997). Internationally diversi? ed ? ms also have better access to the resources resident in foreign countries that may be necessary for producing these new products (Craig and Douglas, 2000; Peng and Wang, 2000). Furthermore, international diversi? cation creates the bene? t of economies of scale by ef? ciently leveraging the initial investments on new prod ucts over a broader market base (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In spite of the bene? cial effects of international diversi? cation, we suggest that international diversi? cation may also entail disadvantages when it comes to introducing new products. For instance, cross-national distances increase the dif? ulty for internationally diversi? ed ? rms to transfer technological knowledge between countries. Differential environmental settings among countries might also constrain the ? rms ability to absorb and apply resources towards new product development. In such cases, new products are expected to be less worthwhile for introducing ? rms with international diversi? cation activities. In addition to investigating the direct impact of international diversi? cation on the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, we postulate that investors assessments of the value of new products may depend on a ? ms internal capabilities. Extending previous research documenting the importance of technological and marketing capabilities in determining new product success (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Yeoh and Roth, 1999), we argue that both marketing and technological capabilities assist in enhancing the bene? ts of international diversi? cation while simultaneously restricting its drawbacks with regard to the introduction of new products. We test our hypotheses by measuring the stock market responses to NPI announcements using the event-study methodology framework. The events of NPI announcements are collected for the period 1997–2005. Under the assumption of the ef? cient markets hypothesis (Fama, 1970), NPI announcements bring unanticipated information into ? nancial markets that may change the market value assessments of the announcing ? rms. In response to the new information, changes in stock prices occur, which represent investors revision of their expectation with regard to the net present value of a ? rms risk-adjusted expected cash ? ow generated by the new products, or stated differently, the investors expectation of the wealth impact of NPIs. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides the theoretical background and develops the hypotheses. Section 3 introduces the sample and methodology. The empirical results are presented in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 contains the discussion and concluding remarks of this study. 2. Theoretical background and hypotheses International diversi? cation has been suggested by FDI theory and portfolio theory to provide ? rms with bene? ts ranging from the ability to realize scale economies (Grant, 1987; Porter, 1986), the possibility to spread investment risks over different countries (Kim et al. 1993), the potential to arbitrage factor cost differentials across multiple locations (Kogut, 1985) and the opportunity to access resources resident in foreign countries (Hitt et al. , 1997). However, there is considerable theoretical evidence that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? ts and costs. We suggest that that these bene? ts and costs that accompany foreign expans ion may create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms in terms of developing new products, and thereby affect the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. In this section, we review various theoretical domains in order to identify the channels through which international diversi? cation might in? uence value creation for ? rms in the context of NPIs. 2. 1. Effects of international diversi? cation International diversi? cation provides several advantages towards developing new products. First, international diversi? cation offers opportunities for ? rms to gain new and diverse ideas from a variety of perspectives (Hitt et al. , 1997). Being exposed to heterogeneous customers, technology, cultures, and competitive practices, internationally diversi? d ? rms are able to learn from the experience in foreign operations to ? nd new solutions to bettering product design and improving the quality of manufacturing know-how (Craig and Douglas, 2000). For example, the launch of a new cordless telephone by Sanyo, which had been adjusted to better meet the phone use habits of American consumers (Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998), consequently expanded t he companys sales in the U. S. market. 3 Prior studies have used several ways to measure the performance of innovation, which includes R intensity (Hill and Snell, 1988; Hitt et al. 1997), number of NPIs (Cardinal and Opler, 1995; Hitt et al. , 1996) and number of patents (Francis and Smith, 1995). Though they have provided valuable insights, the measures they developed have some limitations in capturing the true value of innovation (Chaney et al. , 1991; Schankerman and Pakes, 1986). For example, R intensity is more related to the input value of innovation but does not directly measure the output value of innovation. Furthermore, numbers of NPIs or patents only measure the quantity of inventive output without considering the quality of innovation. As well, patent counts often represent a very noisy measure of the underlying value of innovation because most patents are not worth anything. The measure used in our study allows us to directly measure the wealth effect of innovation, rather than only considering the quantity of inventive output as has been done in prior studies. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 335 International diversi? cation also allows ? rms to gain access to resources that may only be available in foreign markets but not frequently obtainable in the home countries to develop new products (Peng and Wang, 2000). By tapping into the technological skills and knowledge that originates from other countries, multinational ? rms may be able to successfully increase their technological strength in developing new products (Hitt et al. , 1997; Kotabe, 1990; Peng and Wang, 2000; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). Moreover, international diversi? cation provides a ? rm with a wider national network, which helps increase its ability to effectively leverage technological resources and rationalize production processes. These economies of scale can enable the ? m to obtain higher returns from new product innovations (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut, 1985). Furthermore, the broader market outlets available to new products create higher returns on the sunk costs of innovative spending (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001), while cash ? ows generated from large-scale foreign operations provide ? rms with the resources needed for extra investment in new product development (Kobrin, 1991; Kotabe, 1990). Notwit hstanding the above bene? ts, international diversi? cation can bring challenges to the development of new products. The ? rst challenge comes from the dif? ulty in transferring technological knowledge between countries. The more countries within which the ? rm operates, the larger geographic distance the technological know-how has to be transferred, and the less effective the ? rm will be in developing new products. Furthermore, with increasing diversi? cation, the differences in cultural, economic and technological settings among the countries increase. These differences reduce the effectiveness in assimilating and applying the technological knowledge that is critical for new product development (Chang and Wang, 2007; Hitt et al. 1997); while knowledge diversity can create greater learning value (Inkpen, 2000), differences in knowledge does not guarantee successful learning (Bowman and Helfat, 2001; Chang and Singh, 2000; Szulanski and Winter, 2002). In addition, arguments from th e economic law of diminishing returns suggest that the higher degree of international diversi? cation a ? rm is involved in, the more likely it is to be entering markets whose marginal contributions are relatively minor (Contractor et al. , 2003). Beyond a certain point, after already having expanded into the most advantageous markets, the ? m is left with minor or peripheral foreign markets whose resources for and cash ? ow from new product development will exhibit diminishing returns. By drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the above discussions suggest that international diversi? cation not only create opportunities but also impose barriers to the value creation provided by new product innovation. With moderate levels of international diversi? cation, ? rms can capitalize on valuable bene? ts of knowledge learning, resource access and production ef? ciency in producing new products. At the same time, economic pro? ts rise as the ? xed costs of new product development are spread across more markets (Kogut, 1985; Porter, 1986). However, ? rms that expand internationally beyond an optimal level may ? nd that the costs of international diversi? cation eventually exceed the bene? ts. Firms at this stage often enter countries that are more geographically and culturally dissimilar, which increases the dif? culties of transferring technological knowledge between countries. The value of new product innovation may also exhibit diminishing returns when international diversi? ation is increased beyond the optimal level. Based on the above, this study proposes a non-linear and inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, suggesting that the market value of NPIs is expected to improve with increasing international diversi? cation at lower levels of international diversi? cation and then decline with increasing international diversi? cation at higher levels of international diversi? cation. For these reasons, we propose our ? rst hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 1. The relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements is inverted-U-shaped, with a positive slope at lower levels of international diversi? cation and negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. We utilize event-study methodology to capture the valuation effect of corporate new product strategies. This approach not only permits direct investigation of changes in announcing ? rms shareholder value, but is also suited to conduct cross-sectional analysis of the strategies underlying the value creation or destruction (Reuer, 2001). Applying event-study methodology to NPIs also facilitates comparisons with previous studies on other corporate major strategic events. 4 2. 2. Interaction effects of intangible assets and international diversi? cation Although our theoretical framework should hold for all ? rms, the effect of international diversi? cation on new product performance may depend on ? rms intangible assets. Scholars in international business have shown that multinational ? rms with greater marketing and technological capabilities may receive higher returns from international expansion (Kotabe et al. , 2002; Lu and Beamish, 2004). Other researchers also document the importance of marketing and technological capabilities in the success of new products (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Danneels, 2002; Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). We make advances in linking these two streams of study by investigating the moderating effect 4 Previous studies have used event-study methodology to test the wealth effect of major corporate events, such as diversi? cation (Doukas and Lang, 2003; Hoskisson et al. , 1991), divestitures (Benou et al. , 2008), alliances (Das et al. 1998; Kale et al. , 2002), regulatory change (Bowman and Navissi, 2003), NPIs (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995), R expenditures (Szewczyk et al. , 1996), and patents (Austin, 1993). 336 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 of internal capabilities on the association between international diversi? cation and the stock m arket reactions to NPI announcements. We suggest that internationally diversi? ed ? rms that have greater marketing and technological capabilities are more able to extract the bene? ts and reduce the costs of international diversi? ation, resulting in higher returns from NPI announcements. Each moderating effect is discussed independently below. Marketing capability is related to a ? rms ability to acquire external knowledge through the processes of gathering, interpreting, and using market information (Day, 1994). Though international diversi? cation gives ? rms opportunities to access new knowledge, ? rms that do not have ability to identify customers needs and to understand the factors that in? uence consumer choice behavior will not be able to achieve better targeting and positioning of its products. Therefore, ? rms that have invested in developing their marketing capability are more able to integrate the information on consumer needs in diverse markets into new product designs, and thus generate higher returns from the new products (Dutta et al. , 1999). In addition, marketing capability is re? ected in a ? rms ability to differentiate its products from those of competitors (Kotabe et al. , 2002). A higher level of product differentiation allows a ? rm to charge higher prices for its new products (Day, 1994; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). Furthermore, ? ms that spend more money on advertising and promoting their products are more likely to build successful brands, which are essential to building awareness, reducing the perceived risk that consumers associate with new products, and ? nally increasing the adoption rate of new products introduced (Chandy and Tellis, 2000; Dowling and Staelin, 1994; Sorescu et al. , 2003). This is particularly important for ? rms that are completely new to foreign customers (Helsen et al. , 1993; Srivastava et al. , 1998). Consequently, we expect that NPIs are expected to be more worthwhile for internationally diversi? d ? rms with greater marketing capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2. Marketing capability will positively moderate the relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. As mentioned, technological capability is also likely to moderate the effect of international diversi? cation on new product development. Technology capability might represent a ? rms ability to absorb external knowledge (Penner-Hahn and Shaver, 2005; Tsai, 2001). A ? rm may be able to access certain new knowledge through international diversi? ation, but without the capacity to absorb such knowledge a ? rm may not enhance its capabilities within new product innovation. Since knowledge gained from international markets is often tacit and socially complex (Zahra and Hayton, 2008), ? rms that have established a capability in a particular research skill are better able to interpret and assess the knowledge in that area. Technological capability also refers to a ? rms ability to apply knowledge gained from foreign markets to commercial ends (Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999). Kotabe et al. (2002) have stated that ? rms with greater technological capabilities are more capable of ? nding better product design solutions. The technical risks in developing new products are more likely to be reduced for such ? rms (Kelm et al. , 1995). Furthermore, ? rms with greater technological capability are more able to lower production costs by improving manufacturing processes. Moreover, technological capability helps ? rms to speed up the product development process and satisfy the market more quickly (Rabino and Moskowitz, 1981). Thus, ? ms that have greater technological capabilities are more likely to enhance their revenues in international markets by providing those markets with new products of better quality. Meanwhile, ? rms that leverage their technological capabilities in the greater scope of the global market may enjoy the bene? ts of economies of scale inherent in the innovation process. As a result, we expect that NPIs are more worthwhile for internationally diversi? ed ? rms with greater technological capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 3. Technological capability will positively moderate the relationship between international diversi? ation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. 3. Sample and methodology 3. 1. Sample design We test our hypotheses using a sample of NPI announcement events. We collect the sample data on ? rms listed on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) from the Dow Jones News Retrieval Service (DJNRS) database, which provides news-service articles and selected stories from the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones News Wire, and Barrons. We use the words and phrases commonly used to describe NPIs as keys for a database search routine. Examples are â€Å"introduce,† â€Å"new product,† â€Å"unveil,† â€Å"launch,† â€Å"received approval,† â€Å"to market,† â€Å"test market,† â€Å"begin selling,† along with other pertinent words and phrases. When a repeat NPI announcement from a ? rm is found in a different publication, the announcement that has the earliest date is chosen as it is the earliest date when the information about the NPI is publicly available (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995). The sample period is from January 1997 to December 2005. Four criteria are used when selecting ? rms for our sample: (1) the announcing ? rms should not have other announcements ? e days before and after the initial announcement date in order to avoid any confounding events that could distort the measurement of the valuation effects; (2) daily stock return information must be available from the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), with a min imum of 50 daily returns in the estimation period; (3) companies ? nancial information must be available from the COMPUSTAT ? les; and (4) since we want to test the effect of international diversi? cation, only those ? rms with foreign sales data available from the COMPUSTAT ? les are included. C. -F. Wang et al. Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 337 Following these procedures, we collect a ? nal sample comprising 3061 new product announcements made by 531 ? rms in 57 industries based on the two-digit Standard Industrial Classi? cation (SIC) codes. 5 Table 1 reports the distribution of the sample by year and industry. Our data shows no obvious cluster by time period. In 2004, there are 530 announcements, accounting for 17. 32% of the total. Observations are nearly evenly distributed through the remaining years. However, our sample shows certain levels of concentration in speci? c industries. The largest concentration comes from electrical equipment (33. 61%), computer equipment (18. 09%), electro-medical instruments (9. 38%), and business services (e. g. , computer programming and the software industry) (7. 19%). These three broad categories constitute nearly 70% of the total sample. As suggested by Chaney et al. (1991), this result is expected since neither the investment opportunities nor their valuation should be random across industries. 3. 2. Measuring the stock market responses to new product announcements We employ the event study methodology to examine the stock price responses to the announcements of NPIs. This approach has been widely used in the management, accounting, economics and ? nance disciplines to examine the impact of ? rm-speci? c events on ? rm value. The event study approach suggests that, in an ef? cient capital market, the market will adjust and result in returns different from those that are normally expected if the NPI announcement has unexpect ed information content (Hoskisson et al. , 1991). We use the market model suggested by Brown and Warner (1985) to estimate the abnormal returns to NPI announcements. This model captures a ? rms stock price change after adjusting for general market-wide factors and the ? ms systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985). The abnormal return for ? rm i on day t, ARit, is computed by: ARit = Rit ? E? Rit = It ? 1 ? ; where Rit is ? rm is actual returns on day t, and It ? 1 represents the information set available to the market about the ? rm at time t ? 1. The expected return for ? rm i on day t is estimated by: E? Rit = It ? 1 ? = ? i + ? i Rmt where Rmt is the return for the market portfolio on day t, ? i is the intercept, and ? i measures the risk or sensitivity of the ? rms returns relative to the market portfolio. We de? e Day 0 (t = 0) as the initial announcement date. We use the value-weighted CRSP Index as the proxy for the market portfolio. The param eters ? i and ? i are estimated using data for the period of 200 to 60 days before the initial announcement date. The two-day cumulative abnormal returns, CAR (? 1, 0), are estimated by summing the daily abnormal returns over the window period of days ? 1 and 0. The equally weighted cross-sectional average abnormal returns on ? event day t, ARt , is further calculated by: 1N ? ARt = ? ARit ; N i=1 where N is the total number of sample NPIs. The cumulative average abnormal return over the period (? , 0) is similarly de? ned. 3. 3. Measuring international diversi? cation We use the entropy index to estimate international diversi? cation. 7 The entropy measure of international diversi? cation is de? ned as ? [Pi* ln(1/Pi)], where Pi is the percentage of sales in geographic segment i, and ln(1/Pi) is the weight of each geographic segment. This measure thus considers both the number of geographic segments in which a ? rm operates and the relative importance of sales contributed by each g eographic segment. 5 For the industry classi? cation, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the our-digit SIC codes as the indicator of the industry or business segment that a ? rm operates. Therefore, two variables in this study, namely product diversi? cation and industry RD intensity, are estimated basing on the four-digit SIC codes. However, for the sake of brevity, we report the sample distribution by industry on the basis of the two-digit SIC codes. 6 Other performance measures of new product strategies that are most commonly used in previous studies include return on assets, return on sales, return on equity, return on investment and pro? t margin (e. g. , Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2001; Moorman, 1995). However, these accounting measures have several limitations in measuring new product performance (Chang and Wang, 2007; Kalyanaram et al. , 1995; Pauwels et al. , 2004). For example, the differences in accounting policies across ? rms make performance comparisons dif? cult. These measures are also not risk-adjusted as they do not consider business risks associated with individual ? rms when measuring performance, and they are based on historical accounting data and thus may not adequately re? ect future expected revenue streams resulting from the new products. More importantly, these measures re? ect aggregate ? m performance, making it more dif? cult to directly link them to the effect of speci? c new product introductions. Due to these limitations we employ an event study methodology in order to examine stock price responses to announcements of NPIs. This method captures the ? rms stock price change after adjusting for the ? rms systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985), as well as re? ects investors expectations of a ? rms future cash ? ow related to this new product (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Chen et al. , 2002; Kelm et al. , 1995). 7 Previous studies have used several proxies of international diversi? ation. The most commonly used measures are the ratio of foreign sales to total sales (Grant, 1987; Tallman and Li, 1996), the ratio of foreign assets to total assets (Daniels and Bracker, 1989; Ramaswamy, 1995), numbers of foreign countries in which a ? rm has subsidiaries (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Tallman and Li, 1996) or a composite index encompassing these three dimensions (Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Sullivan, 1994). However, these measures only capture the extent but not the distribution of international diversi? cation. In this study, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the entropy measure of international diversi? ation to account for the extent of sales in global markets and their weighting. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 338 Table 1 Distribution of new product introduction. Panel A. Sample distribution by year Year Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Total 354 279 370 313 232 247 391 530 345 3061 11. 56 9. 11 12. 08 10. 22 7. 58 8. 07 12. 77 17. 32 11. 30 100. 00 Panel B. Sample distribution by industry Two-digit SIC code Industry group 01 12 13 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 Agricultural production crops Coal mining Oil and gas extraction Building construction: general contractors Heavy construction other than building construction contractors Construction: special trade contractors Food and kindred products Tobacco products Textile mill products Apparel, ? nished prdcts from fabrics and similar materials Lumber and wood products, except furniture Furniture and ? xtures Paper and allied products Printing, publishing, and allied industries Chemicals and allied products Petroleum re? ning and related industries Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products Leather and leather products Primary metal industries Fabricated metal products, except machinery and transportation equipment Industrial and commercial machinery and computer equipment Electronic and other electrical equipment and components, except computer equipment Transportation equipment Measuring, analyzing, and controlling instruments; photographic, medical and optical goods Miscellaneous manufacturing industries Railroad transportation Motor freight transportation and warehousing Transportation by air Pipelines, except natural gas Transportation services Communications Electric, gas, and sanitary services Wholesale trade: durable goods Wholesale trade: non-durable goods Building materials, hardware, garden supply, and mobile home dealers General merchandise stores Food stores Apparel and accessory stores Home furniture, furnishings, and equipment stores Eating and drinking places Miscellaneous retail Depository institutions Non

Crisis Management at Organizational Level

Introduction Proper emergency management is essential for every organization, town, city or country if it is to protect its crucial assets and members of the public from harmful events like disasters and catastrophes. The aim of proper emergency management is to prevent various disasters from happening and, in case they happen, to minimize the loss of lives and damages to property and infrastructure through, organized, and coordinated response from all parties involved.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Crisis Management at Organizational Level specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Proper emergency management requires planning and anticipation, and ability to respond quickly in the right way if lives and property are to be saved (Haddow and Bullock, 2007). This can only be achieved if all the relevant parties involved in an emergency response like the fire department, the police, emergency medical services and the gener al public is all acting in a well-coordinated manner. Therefore, any city or country must have an emergency management plan that outlines how the input of all these stakeholders is going to be harnessed for maximum productivity. This paper will look at crisis management at organizational level, and the various emergency management systems that can be put in place in anticipation of large-scale events like a tsunami. The Role of Emergency Management Teams Organizations usually face everyday emergencies that can be dealt with effectively without causing any major interruptions to the organizations functions. However, when disasters strike, organizations lose their normal autonomy and are forced into different interactions that are not normal (Burns, 2001). Response to the disaster requires a more coordinated effort from both the public and private sector. Catastrophes have even greater impact as most of the community infrastructure is affected. The community’s everyday function s are interrupted and the community is cut off from other communities, making it hard to even get outside help. An organization or community therefore needs to have in place a proper emergency response plan for any eventuality if it is to survive and rebuild in case of a large scale disaster or catastrophe. Proper emergency management is strategy-based process that is run from the top of any organization. The emergency management team provides guidance and coordinates the different sections of the organization so as to ensure that they are all focused on the same goal. This means that all the emergency plans throughout all the levels of the organization have to be synchronized. In such a setting, the lower levels of the organization rely on getting additional help and resources from the higher levels of the organization to help them manage an emergency (Moore and Lakha, 2006). A good emergency plan is designed to protect the assets of the organization or community. These assets can be classified as living and nonliving things.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More They can also be cultural or economic, and the hazards they face can be natural or man-made. A well-structured emergency management process is usually divided into four general areas for easy management and coordination. First, risk reduction is important and measures have to be put in place to reduce the likelihood of disaster striking. The management process must also have organized ways of mobilizing resources to respond to the hazard. The third component involves responding to the effectively to the actual damage resulting from the hazard and minimizing further damage. This includes measures like quarantine, emergency evacuations and mass decontamination. Lastly, the emergency management team must have in place a plan for recovery that will enable the organization or community to return to thei r normal lives as it were before the hazard incident. Phases of Emergency Management The emergency management processes rely on local economic and social conditions if they are to be successful (Heath, 1998). They involve mobilization of the community’s resources, right from before the disaster strikes, during the disaster, and long after the disaster has passed and the recovery process is underway. The emergency management must therefore put emphasis on public awareness and proper infrastructure if it is to succeed with its plans in the event of an emergency. Proper emergency management is organized into four phases; preventive measures (mitigation); getting ready for any eventuality (preparedness); handling the disaster when it happens (response) and rebuilding after the disaster (recovery). Mitigation Any organization or community faces a lot of hazards. It is upon the emergency management team t find ways of preventing these hazards from developing into disasters. In case the disaster happens, there have to be ways of reducing the impact. The emergency management team must conduct a thorough analysis of the risks and find ways of mitigating them. Financial investments are also protected through insurance. The mitigation process puts a lot of emphasis on long-term measures for minimizing or eliminating the risk, and their implementation form part of the recovery process after a disaster happens. Mitigation involves taking some structural and nonstructural measures. For example, the authorities can build dykes and flood levees to mitigate the effects of floods, or retrofit buildings for earthquakes. Non-structural measures include proper legislation, land use planning and insurance coverage.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Crisis Management at Organizational Level specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The authorities are tasked with providing communication to the public regarding the r isks they face. They also organize for evacuations, and may be forced to carry out forceful evacuations of those who are not cooperating. Even if some of the measures carried under mitigation are not the best, this is still a very affordable way for authorities to handle a crisis (Treece, 2002). In coming up with mitigation measures, the authorities assess the risks thoroughly and evaluate the hazards. The fire and rescue department in any community must be involved in the mitigation programs. They can educate the public on the various safety and evacuation drills to be performed when disasters happen, and their roles during such emergencies so that the public can cooperate with them. Preparedness Preparedness refers to the behavioral changes undertaken to limit the effects of a disaster on people. It is an ongoing process that involves planning, organizing and managing of activities related to prevention, response and recovery from disasters. It requires continuous training, equipp ing, evaluating, monitoring and improving the measure put in place to deal with a disaster when it strikes. Under the preparedness phase, the authorities are expected to come up with plans of action for managing and countering the risks, and to build the appropriate capabilities suitable for the implementation of such plans (Treece, 2002). First, the authorities must come up with communication plans that use terminologies and methods that are easy to understand to avoid creating confusion. The fire and rescue services and other teams that will be involved in case of a disaster need to be properly trained and equipped to prepare them for their tasks. The authorities should also develop emergency population warning methods and evacuation plans, including setting aside emergency shelters. Since professional emergency workers can sometimes be overwhelmed during large-scale emergencies, it is advisable to have groups of trained volunteers among the civilian populations as their help is r eally valuable in an emergency situation. A big part of preparedness involves being able to predict casualties. This entails the prediction of how many deaths or injuries are to be expected in case of a major disaster so that the authorities know what plans to put in place for such an eventuality. Response When it comes to response, all the necessary emergency services that are needed at the disaster site have to be mobilized quickly. The first wave of crucial emergency services to arrive at the disaster zone includes fire fighters, ambulance crew and the police. The military and other specialist rescue teams can also be involved in the disaster relief operation. Such responses ought to have been well rehearsed during the preparedness phase so that there is efficient coordination of the various teams involved in the rescue operation.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Since the vast majority of the victims of a disaster will die within 72 hours after the impact, it is important to start search and rescue efforts immediately (Moore and Lakha, 2006). An organization’s response to a major disaster is based on preset emergency management systems and processes. In an emergency situation, discipline is important in terms of structure, doctrine and process. There should also be some flexibility to allow for improvisation, adaptability and creativity when responding to the disaster. There is also need to form a team of leaders from the various response agencies to coordinate proceedings as more teams come in. The new leadership team must come up with a structured set of response plans that allow for the functional rescue operational process already in place to continue while adapting to new challenges as they arise at the disaster site and beyond. Recovery After the disaster has passed and the rescue operations are over, the affected area will hav e to be restored to how it was before the disaster. The recovery efforts focus on issues and decisions to be made after the response operations are complete. All the destroyed properties have to be rebuilt and the destroyed infrastructure has to be repaired. People also have to go back to their jobs or get new ones. The rebuilding efforts should aim at eliminating or at least minimizing the risks that were there in the community before the disaster struck (Disaster and Recovery Planning Guide, n.d.). This is also an opportunity to implement some of the mitigation measures that might have been unpopular before, as they are less likely to attract any opposition while the recent disaster is still fresh in the memories of the public. Media Coverage and Public Perception and Response The media plays a crucial role in informing the public about the unfolding events when a disaster happens. The manner in which they frame their news coverage has a direct impact on the public’s percep tion of the disaster and will influence how the public responds. The media is therefore encouraged to elicit a public response that benefits the organizations involved and the people impacted by the crisis. It is important that the authorities take quick control of the message whenever a crisis occurs (Polit, 1998). The media can play a crucial role in helping coordinate the rescue and recovery efforts by relaying crucial information from the authorities to the public. Cooperation on a personal level is also important. This cooperation and positive response should not just come after the disaster happens but should start from the initial phases of emergency management. For example, personal mitigation is necessary and involves avoiding unnecessary risks and following the guidelines set forth by the relevant authorities. Individuals are also encouraged to take insurance on their properties and to avoid investing in disaster prone areas. It is important to follow the instructions of t he authorities and to abide by the regulations put in place right from the beginning. There are many emergency response measures that one can take on a personal level, and one can always get more information on this from the relevant authorities and other sources. Tsunami Emergency Management Systems The tsunami disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 killed and injured thousands of people and left tens of thousands homeless. The Fukushima nuclear power plant was also severely damaged and posed a newer risk, leading to the evacuation of thousands of people from the exclusion zone. The impact of this disaster served as a wakeup call to many countries, and measures are already being put in place some countries to help them be ready to deal with a large-scale tsunami. Many programs have been put in place by individual countries and the international community to improve public safety during tsunami emergencies. Some of the programs that have been proposed or are already underway include a global tsunami early warning system and national weather service tsunami programs. Global Tsunami Early Warning System The push for a global tsunami early warning system started after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster and was reinforced by the recent tsunami disaster in Japan. The idea faces several financial, technical and political challenges that have to be ironed out before it is can be put in place (Simola, 2005). Some developed nations have the resources and capabilities to establish their own regional emergency disaster warning networks and have already done so. However, for a truly global tsunami-monitoring network, government policy analysts have been raising technological and national security issues as challenges that have to be overcome first. The U.S. for example fears the open access and sabotage of international communication networks. There is concern that some of the data collected could be deemed sensitive and might reveal methodologies that would compromise the intelligence-gathering operations of the U.S. and other nations. The Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) The United States has taken initiative towards a global disaster warning system with the GEOSS project that also provides for building capacity for global tsunami early detection and warning capabilities. GEOSS’s infrastructure will be based on exact environmental data collection platforms, environmental observation systems, telecommunication capabilities and communications lines that are operational around the world. By linking the operations of GEOSS and other systems, the United States would assist other countries in developing a tsunami early warning capacity. The tsunami early detection systems have also been upgraded to make them more efficient. The U.S. is leading in terms of new technologies for tsunami preparedness, for example, the state-of-the art Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoys that are used for operational detecti on of tsunamis and verification on non-events in the ocean. Tsunami Action Plan for the U.S. The United States, as part of improving its tsunami warning and detection system, has already deployed 32 DART buoys to improve tsunami detection from the Gulf of Mexico, the far Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and the Caribbean Sea. There is also a push by some social scientists for the implementation of proper legislation that will help in protecting the country from tsunamis. There is already a plan underway to train local authorities on local tsunami emergency planning. Interagency resource sharing at all levels of government is also strongly emphasized. The National Weather Service (NWS), through the National Tsunami Warning Program (NTWP) has two tsunami warning centers that monitor, detect and warn of possible tsunamis arising in the Pacific Ocean (George, 2002). The NTWP also has an associate program that concentrates on reducing the rate of false tsunami alarms arising from the Pacific Ocean. There is also the National Tsunami Hazards Mitigation Program (NTHMP) to help states in emergency planning for tsunamis (Robbins et al, 2001). Conclusion Crisis management is an important undertaking for any organization or community. Effective emergency management systems must be put in place if an organization or community is to effectively deal with disasters when they happen. Such systems must first start by taking preventive measures and making preparations before the disaster strikes. This includes public education and properly equipping important organizations like the fire and rescue department whose role in emergencies is crucial. The response to the emergency also needs to be well planned and coordinated between the different authorities involved for the mission to be smooth and successful. Large-scale disasters like tsunamis require planning on a large scale, starting from the international community, down to the individual countries and local communities. The effe cts of large-scale tsunamis have already been seen and felt, and as a result, countries have stepped up their efforts for early detection and warning before a tsunami strikes. They have also put in place measures to be taken and how the public is expected to respond in case of a tsunami emergency. With these measures in place, the impact of the disaster can be lessened considerably. References Burns, N 2001, The practice of Emergency Response, WB Saunders Publications, Philadelphia. George, B 2002, Disaster Theories: The Base for Professional Evacuation, Appleton and Lange, Norwalk. Disaster and Recovery Planning Guide, n.d., A guide for Facility Managers, Fairmont Press Inc, Lilburn, Georgia. Haddow, G D Bullock, J 2007, Introduction to Emergency Management,  Butterworth Heinemann, London. Heath, R 1998, Crisis Management for Managers and Executives, Financial Times/Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Moore, T Lakha, R (eds) 2006, Tolly’s Handbook of Disaster and Emergency Manag ement: principles and practice, 3rd edn, Heinemann Butterworth, London. Polit, D F1998, Disaster Management: Principles and Methods, JB Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. Robbins, S P, Judge, T A, Millett, B Boyle, M 2011, Organizational Behaviour, Pearson, New York. Simola, S K 2005, ‘Organizational crisis management: overview and opportunities’, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol 57 No. 3, 180-192. Treece, J W 2002, Elements of Research in Emergency Response, Mosby, St. Louis. This essay on Crisis Management at Organizational Level was written and submitted by user Kobe Hahn to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Interacting Galaxies - Galaxy Mergers and Collisions

Interacting Galaxies - Galaxy Mergers and Collisions Galaxies are the largest single objects in the universe. Each one contains upwards of trillions of stars in a single gravitationally bound system. While the universe is extremely large, and many galaxies are very far apart, it is actually quite common for galaxies to group together in clusters. Its also common for them to collide with each other. The result is the creation of new galaxies. Astronomers can trace the construction of galaxies as they collided throughout history, and now know that this is the main way galaxies are built.  Ã‚   Theres a whole area of astronomy devoted to the study of colliding galaxies. The process not only affects the galaxies themselves, but astronomers also observe that starbirth is often triggered when galaxies merge together.   Galaxy Interactions Large galaxies, like the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy, came together as smaller objects collided and merged. Today, astronomers see smaller satellites orbiting nearby both the Milky Way and Andromeda. These dwarf galaxies have some of the characteristics of larger galaxies, but are on a much smaller scale and can be irregularly shaped.  Some of the companions are being cannibalized by our galaxy.   The Milky Ways largest satellites are called the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. They seem to be orbiting our galaxy in a billions-of-years-long orbit, and may not actually ever merge with the Milky Way. However, they are affected by its gravitational pull, and may only be approaching the galaxy for the first time. If so, there still could be a merger in the distant future. The shapes of Magellanic clouds have been distorted by that, causing them to appear irregular. Theres also evidence of large streams of gas being pulled from them into our own galaxy.   Galaxy Mergers Large-galaxy collisions do occur, which create huge new galaxies in the process. Often what happens is that two large spiral galaxies will merge, and due to the gravitational warping that precedes the collision, the galaxies will lose their spiral structure. Once the galaxies are merged, astronomers suspect that they form a new structure known as an elliptical galaxy. Occasionally, depending on the relative sizes of the merging galaxies, an irregular or peculiar galaxy  is a result of the merger. Interestingly, while galaxies themselves may merge, the process doesnt always hurt the stars they contain. This is because while galaxies do have stars and planets, theres a LOT of empty space, as well as giant clouds of gas and dust. However, colliding galaxies that do contain a large amount of gas enter a period of rapid star formation. Its usually much greater than the average rate of star formation in a non-colliding galaxy. Such a merged system is known as a starburst galaxy; aptly named for a large number of stars that are created in a short amount of time as a result of the collision. Merger of the Milky Way With the Andromeda Galaxy A close to home example of a large galaxy merger is the one that will occur between the Andromeda galaxy with our very own Milky Way. The result, which will take millions of years to unfold, will be a new galaxy.   Currently, Andromeda is about 2.5 million light-years away from the Milky Way. Thats about 25 times as far away as the Milky Way is wide. This is, obviously quite a distance, but is quite small considering the scale of the universe.  Hubble Space Telescope data suggests that the Andromeda galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way, and the two will begin to merge in about 4 billion years. Heres how it will play out. In about 3.75 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy will virtually fill the night sky. At the same time, it and the Milky Way will start warping due to the immense gravitational pull each will have on the other. Ultimately the two will combine to form a single, large elliptical galaxy. It is also possible that another galaxy, called the Triangulum galaxy, which currently orbits Andromeda, will also participate in the merger.  The resulting galaxy might be named Milkdromeda, if anybody is still around to be naming objects in the sky.   What Will Happen to Earth? Chances are that the merger will have little effect on our solar system. Since most of Andromeda is empty space, gas, and dust, much like the Milky Way, many of the stars should find new orbits around the combined galactic center. That center may have as many as three supermassive black holes until they, too, merge.   The greater danger to our solar system is the increasing brightness of our Sun, which will eventually exhaust its hydrogen fuel and evolve into a red giant. That will start to happen in about four billion years. At that point, it will engulf Earth as it expands. Life, it seems, will have died out long before any kind of galaxy merger takes place. Or, if were lucky, our descendants will have figured out a way to escape the solar system and find a world with a younger star.   Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT - Labor Laws and Unions Essay

HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT - Labor Laws and Unions - Essay Example The Company’s mission is to â€Å"connect people with their world everywhere they live, work and do it better than anyone else†. AT & T Inc has been accused of inhuman treatment of their employees and overtime payment row to their middle managers in a number of states (Sterling Attorneys, 2011). In the first case, AT&T was accused of requiring employees to stand all day when attending to customers in newly acquired stores notwithstanding the extended hours of operation to 12-13 hours a day. AT&T was in breach of The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) which stipulates the minimum wage and overtime pay. It is not only individuals that enjoy a wide range of benefits arising by virtue of being a member of a trade union but also organizations. For instance, organizations stand a better chance of identifying challenges faced by their workers owing to liaison with workers representatives. This gives an opportunity to tackle the problems faced by employees in due time. The Unionization process begins with gathering information about whether there is an existing union in the organization. If there is an existing union then an individual will contact them for further information. In case no union exists in the organization then employees will have to build their own union by coming together to sign an â€Å"Authorization† card. The next step involves making the union official by holding a secret ballot election under the supervision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The workers can also make their union official by asking the employer to voluntarily recognize the association. The trade unions tend to bargain through collective bargain whereby the union agents on behalf of the unionized employees, petition the employer to take into consideration a particular interest of the employees such as pay rise or improved working condition. Unions bring about serious implications on employers. In case the union disagrees on

Theories of Internationalization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Theories of Internationalization - Essay Example This paper takes a comprehensive look at three of these theories: The Uppsala Model, The Eclectic Theory of International Production and Michael Porter Diamond Model. The definitions, assumptions, strengths and weaknesses relating to the above mentioned theories are discussed in this paper. The Uppsala Model The Uppsala Model was developed by Johanson and Vahlne in 1977 from their studies which focused on manufacturing firms of Sweden (Buckley & Ghauri, 1998 p.63). The empirical observations from their studies made them formulate the Uppsala Model. This model is based on the behavioural theory which uses behavioural actions to explain the nature of firms. Internationalization has been described as a process of experiential learning and incremental commitments which leads to an evolutionary development in a foreign market. The model has focused more on acquisition of knowledge and learning. In this regard, the lack of knowledge is seen as a barrier to the development of foreign operat ions. Four core concepts can be extracted from the Uppsala Model. These are market knowledge, market commitment, current activities and commitment decisions (Buckley & Ghauri, 1998 p.66). ... Both kinds of knowledge are required for international initiatives. The objective or general knowledge is easily learnt through teaching and marketing researches while the experiential or market -specific knowledge is only learnt through personal experience and is not transferrable of separable from the source. The model places much emphasis on experiential knowledge because it generates business opportunities and lays the foundation upon which internationalization process takes place. Market commitment concept is built from two factors. They are the amount of resources and the degree of commitment. The amount of resources refers to the size or the scale of investment in terms of marketing, personnel, research and others. The degree of commitment varies depending on the level of integration between the resources and other parts of the firm. The degree is higher if the level of integration is higher. Current activities constitute the main source of experience for a firm. Experience is important because it generates opportunities that lead to market commitments. Other sources of experience would include hiring people with experience, getting advice from other firms and taking over other firms with experience. These options have their limitations. First, the experienced force to be hired may not be available and second, the firms to take over or get advice from may not also be available. The best available option of gaining experience is through current activities which is a slow process (Michael, 2011 p. 39). The current business activities have to be continuous over time in order to realize desired consequences. Therefore, if the lag between the current activities and desired

Green Design Essay Example for Free

Green Design Essay The notion of a responsible architecture design is something that flourished way back in 1970s. However, green designs during that time were only developed on a domestic or small scale basis (Papanek 4). It is only in the late 1980s that green commercial developments are done as an effect not only of the 1980 economic boom but also of various social, political and design factors (Beaufoy 199). At the present age, the author argues that the attempts of modern architecture to merge new trends in office design and environmental friendly features are primarily commercial in nature and not really fully environmental. Having such premise in mind, the author formulated the research question: Should interior designers encourage clients to go with green design? In order to sufficiently answer this question, the author have provided a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of the green design and then significantly deduce based from the said arguments the writer’s stance weather he will respond to the question on the affirmative or the negative manner. Arguments on the affirmative side claims that: (1) The green design will help reduce the environmental burdens that the present society brings to the aforementioned and also help man conserve energy (Winter 8); and (2) The green design will help to minimize or to an extent prevent sickness that are acquired within a particular building or house. On the other hand, the arguments on the negative side are the following: (1) The green design raises the costs in erecting buildings or houses; (2) The green design is difficult to implement on certain states, depending on the statutory laws governing a particular state. Body The body of the research elaborates on the positive and the downsides of implementing green design. Reducing Environmental Burdens and Energy Conservation The relevance of green buildings on a global level and its effect to the environment and energy conservation is one of the major arguments in terms of promoting green designs. Buildings or houses that are tailored to be such are expected to reduce carbon dioxide and CFC emissions that are brought about by airconditioning (Beaufoy 203). For instance, IBM has been creating buildings that are completely asbestos free and avoids the use of hardwoods unless the latter came from a sustainable source. They are also using low ozone-depleting chemicals and has been controlling the ozone emission of their airconditioning, and even planning in the near future to eliminate aircondition altogether. In some instances, where green buildings use glass on the exterior, such helps to lessen the need for heating, and the small amount of heat that is needed could be gas-fired. Corollary with this, one can also help to reduce the use of light bulbs of fluorescent lights, hence conserving energy (Beaufoy 203). The use of energy efficient devices such as those of modern HVAC devices helps buildings to save operating costs and could even make the former eligible for rebates offered by local energy companies. In addition with this, through designing building facilities that make use of energy through natural ventilation and daylight also reduces operating costs (Meyerson 47). Health Benefits One of the major premises why green buildings are favorable is due to the health benefits that it could bring to people. For instance if a building is designed to draw air at a high level, cooled and the filtered, the air conditioning or water system of the aforementioned could help eliminate the risk of Legionnaires Disease (Beaufoy 203). The Greenpeace building in Islington, London are also geared towards creating a more environmentally sustained building in their inclination to reduce the risks of office illnesses that result due to the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions of airconditions (Beaufoy 204). Increased Construction and Soft Costs The actual costs of building green architecture are something that is too expensive that a lot of green features can not be really accommodated by most marginalized companies (Johnston 1). As such it is often argued that green buildings are only for wealthy people (Wilson 1). The problem of first costs or the initial expenses that has to be paid prior to building a house is something that is of a growing concern for customers. For instance, the use of uncommon trades and materials could increase costs in addition to LEED commissioning (Syphers et al 8). In addition with this, higher soft costs are also most likely to be incurred in green buildings. The use of additional design analysis, computer modeling, commissioning, product research and lifecycle costs analysis for materials that could be substituted could also paved the way for up-front costs (Syphers et al 8). Legal Considerations Local conditions that are unique to every country and state cold also be one of the problems in terms of attempting to erect green buildings, for some state regulations could pose certain problems on the aforementioned. For instance, the state of California prohibits the use of water-free urinals that could have saved certain buildings a significant amount of water (Syphers et al 6). In relation with this, the use of solar panels that could have help buildings to save electricity, though highly encouraged within various states regulations; also poses some problems as the law requires buildings to locate these panels somewhere that could not be seen on public roads due to the risk of accidents. Also, local building codes have given limitations on the height windmills including its zone restrictions (Syphers et al 7). As generally known, windmills are also one of the most environmentally friendly way of generating electricity. Analysis After presenting the abovementioned arguments of the positive and the downsides of the use of the green design, it is also noteworthy to tell that amidst all of these most basic issues, the author perceived that the advocacy for the adaptation of green buildings is something that is primarily commercial in nature rather than really environmental in focus. Although it could be significantly noted that green buildings indeed helps the environment due to cutting the use of certain machines that could have harmed for instance the ozone layer, it could be implied that the primary motivation of customers is indeed on cost cutting and juxtaposed with that of course is a relatively healthy lifestyle. In this respect, it could be said that although the positive side of green architecture is emphasized most specially its environmental underpinnings, the fact couldn’t be hidden that such an endeavor is not really one hundred percent pro nature as one could see a compromise between capitalism and protecting the environment. It is with this respect that the author remembered that capitalism is indeed a necessary evil. There are a number of human endeavors that will not proceed without its aid, and such includes even the environment. In addition to these issues, the notion of the difficulty of implementing the architectural design of green buildings is something that should also be taken into consideration. The initial construction costs and soft costs could be really expensive; however, experts still argue that the life cycle costs of the building in the long run could be very cost effective (California Integrated Waste Management Board 1). The legal considerations of course are something that is imperative in order to assure order and efficiency to the society. Albeit it should be noted that the process of adopting green design is something that is still in the process of development; hence it is theoretically possible that the future technology could bring about changes that could fully actualize the fullest utility of the program. Conclusion Given the abovementioned factors, the author wishes to answer the research question: â€Å"Should interior designers encourage clients to go with green design? † in the affirmative. It could be seen that although the green design has a number of short comings, it could not be denied that these flaws are only minute in comparison to the overall utility that it could bring to man and to the environment. The short comings of green design could be solved through active collaboration of various stakeholders that are concerned to such like customers, contractors, architects, interior designers, engineers, the government, non government organizations, private corporations and the likes. Literature Cited Beaufoy, Helena. â€Å"Case Study: The Green Office in Britain A Critical Analysis†. Journal of Design History 6,3 (1993) 206. California Integrated Waste Management Board. January 2007. Sustainable (Green) Building: Project Design Cost Issues. 23 October 2007 http://www. ciwmb. ca. gov/GreenBuilding/Design/CostIssues. htm#Primers Johnston, Ritchey. Actual Costs Is Building Green Too Expensive? January 2000. Housing Zone. 23 October 2007 http://www. housingzone. com/topics/nahb/green/nhb00ca029. asp Meyerson, Andrew. â€Å"The Dollars and Cents of Green Construction: Being Environmentally Friendly Brings Financial as Well as Social Benefits†. Journal of Accountancy 199,5 (2005) 47. Papanek, Victor. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change. London: Thames Hudson, 1985. Syphers, Geof et al. October 2003 Managing the Cost of Green Buildings K-12 Public Schools Research Laboratories Public Libraries Multi-family Affordable Housing. State of California and Almeda COunty Waste Management Authority. 23 October 2007 http://www. ciwmb. ca. gov/GreenBuilding/Design/ManagingCost. pdf Winter, Metta, â€Å"The Greening of Design: Jack Elliott Believes Interior Designers Can and Should Play a Major Role in Preventing Environmental Degradation, That Sustainability Should Be Central to All Design Decisions†. Human Ecology 30,1 (2002) 8. Wilson, Alex. Building Green on a Budget. May 1999. Building Green. com. 23 October 2007 http://www. buildinggreen. com/auth/article. cfm? fileName=080501a. xmla

Studying The Peach Fruit Fly: Bactrocera zonata

Studying The Peach Fruit Fly: Bactrocera zonata Abstract The peach fruit fly, Bactrocera zonata (Saunders) is one of the most harmful species of Tephritidae. It is a polyphagous species attacking more than 40 species of fruit crops and has also been recorded from wild host plants. The peach fruit fly is a serious pest of peach, guava and mango; secondary hosts include apricot, fig and citrus. It causes serious economic losses, either by direct damage to fruits or indirectly by warranting the need for quarantine and phytosanitary measures. Bactrocera zonata is native from India and is present in numerous tropical countries of Asia. However, this pest has been established in Egypt since the late 1990s and is now largely widespread throughout the country. Therefore, it demonstrated its ability to establish outside tropical climates and its adaptability to local temperate conditions. In Egypt, B. zonata is active throughout the year when temperatures exceed 10 °C and can complete several generations per year, apparently overwintering also in temperate climates. Bactrocera zonata is well adapted to hot climates and shows higher low-temperature thresholds than those of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata, which is widespread in the Mediterranean countries. Pest risk analysis suggests that the peach fruit fly is capable to establish and spread in coastal areas of the Mediterranean region, causing significant damage on fruit production. of entering, establishing, spreading and causing significant impacts on fruit production in other countries of the Mediterranean region. INTRODUCTION Tephritid fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) have a major impact on world agriculture, causing yield losses and reducing the quality and marketability of agricultural crops. Control of fruit flies mostly relies on the application of broad-spectrum insecticides, which could cause food contamination, side effects on beneficials and pest resistance to insecticides. Tephritid fruit flies are among the most invasive species of fruits and vegetables in the world. Establishment of exotic flies would cause direct and indirect economic losses due to damage to fruits and  strict quarantine regulations imposed by importing countries to avoid introductions of invasive pests. The family Tephritidae, comprises nearly 4500 species distributed over most of the world and include several species that pose a potential threat to Mediterranean horticulture, mainly of the wide-ranging genus Bactrocera, native to South East Asia and Australasia, the genus Anastrepha, originated from Central and South America, and the genus Ceratitis, indigenous to Africa. The genus Bactrocera is considered a serious threat of fruit crops because of the wide host range of its species and the invasive power of some species within the genus (White and Helson-Harris 1992; Clarke et al., 2005). Several Bactrocera species established outside of their native Asian range: Bactrocera carambolae Drew and Hancock in Surinam and northern Brazil, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillet) in Hawaii, East and West Africa, Bactrocera dorsalis Hendel in Polynesia and Hawaii, Bactrocera invadens Drew, Tsuruta and White in Sub-Saharan Africa and Bactrocera zonata (Saunders) in the eastern Mediterranean basin (Vayssià ¨res et al., 2008). The two polyphagous fruit flies presently established in the Mediterranean region are the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), the most dangerous and widespread species, and the peach fruit fly B. zonata, which has been detected in Egypt in1998 and spread throughout the country (Amro and Abdel-Galil, 2008). The peach fruit fly was intercepted at the port of Valencia in 2005 by quarantine officials on citrus fruits imported from Egypt. Therefore, a Pest Risk Assessment (PRA) was carried out by Spain and submitted to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for a scientific opinion. The PRA pointed out that the peach fruit fly can establish and spread in southern Europe, causing considerable damage to fruit yield. However, the pest risk assessment can be improved by defining the potential climatic range of the pest in Europe and identifying fruit crops potentially at risk (EFSA, 2007). Bactrocera zonata is listed as Dacus zonatus in Annex IAI of Directive 2 000/29/EC, which includes harmful organisms whose introduction in EC countries are banned. In the present paper we review the life history, host range, influence of climatic factors  and provide a tentative distribution map of the peach fruit fly in the Mediterranean region along with control methods. DISTRIBUTION The peach fruit fly is native to tropical Asia and is widely distributed in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia (Sumatra), southern Iran, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam, Yemen. It also occurs on the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius and Reunion (EPPO, 2005). In Pakistan, this fruit fly is abundant in coastal and sub-coastal areas of Baluchistan and Sind, and in semi-desert areas and northern plains of Punjab. However, it has also been recorded as rare from foot hills of Islamabad and Peshawar valley of North Western Frontier Province (Hussain, 1995). In Sri Lanka, this species is distributed throughout the island in wet and dry zones and has been recorded up to the elevation of 1800 m (Tsuruta et al., 1997). In the last decades, the peach fruit fly has spread westward and has established in the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Bactrocera zonata was identified in 1998 on infested guavas collected in Agamy and Sabahia, near Alexandria. In 1999, monitoring traps showed high capture rates in Alexandria and Cairo. In October 2000, the pest was detected in North Sinai and is at present widespread in all the fruit-growing areas of Egypt (EPPO, 2008). California has been invaded multiple times (1989, 2001 and 2006) by the peach fruit fly, but it has been successfully eradicated (EPPO, 2005). LARVAL HOST RANGE The peach fruit fly has been recorded infesting over 40 cultivated and wild plant species, mainly those with fleshy fruits (Table 1). In Pakistan, B. zonata is a serious pest of guava, mango, peaches, papaya, persimmon and citrus. Damage of 25-50% has been reported in guava, of 10-15% in mango and of 40% in persimmon (Syed et al., 1970; Qureshi et al., 1992; Stonehouse et al., 2002). The relative susceptibility of the most common cultivated fruits in New Valley Oases (Egypt) was determined in field on the basis of adult emergence from infested fruits. Sour orange appeared to be the highest susceptible host, followed by orange and guava, whereas mandarin, apple, mango and fig were more resistant/showed some sort of resistance (Amro and Abdel-Galil, 2008). In Egypt, the highest number of pupae and the highest percentage of adult emergence were recorded under laboratory conditions from pear fruits, followed by guava, peach, apple and apricot (Shehata et al., 2008). Bactrocera zonata seems more adapted to attack citrus fruits than C. capitata. In fact, in 2002/2003 at Fayoum Governatorate (Egypt), the two species infested 15.5 and 0.35% of Navel orange, 10.0 and 0.9% of grapefruit, 8.7 and 3.7% of mandarin, 5.7 and 3.4% of sour orange, 0.6 and 0.3% of lemon and 0.6 and 0.3% of Valencia orange, respectively (Saafan et al., 2005). Restrictions by overseas markets are inevitable if research funding actions show that the peach fruit fly is established in Mediterranean countries. LIFE HISTORY The peach fruit fly is anautogenous, i.e. it emerges from puparia as sexually immature adult that needs to feed to survive and reproduce. Adults obtain sugars from honeydew  and other plant exudates, protein from bird feces and phylloplane bacteria and moisture from dew and rain. Adults are attracted by some plant-derived phenyl propanoids (e.g., methyl eugenol), that might play a role in the mating behaviour. Mated females pierce the skin of host fruits with their ovipositor and lay a batch of 2-9 eggs. The eggs usually hatch in a few days and the young larvae feed upon the fruit pulp destroying the fruit. Tunnels created by larval feeding also allow the entry of secondary pathogens causing secondary fruit rot. The mature larvae leave the fruit and pupate in the soil where they emerge two weeks later as young adults. Bactrocera zonata is a non-diapausing and multivoltine species with overlapping generations. In Pakistan and Egypt, adults are present throughout the year except in January and February (Hussain, 1995; Farag et al., 2009). Overwintering mostly occur in the larval or pupal stage. Adults a strong flier, capable of dispersing more than 24 km in search for host plants (Qureshi et al., 1975). Passive dispersal is mainly by means of winds and transportation of infested fruits. Adults live for 30-60 days and the pre-oviposition period (including sexual maturation of 8-16 days, ranges from 10 to 23 days. A female can lay up to 93 eggs/day, and as many as 564 in its lifetime (Qureshi et al., 1974). Under favourable conditions, the eggs hatch into larvae within 2 days. The larvae feed in the fruits for 4 to 30 days, depending on temperature (Duyck et al., 2004). Mature larvae burrow 2.5 to 12.5 cm in the ground to pupate. The pupal period varies from 4 days in summer to over 6 weeks in winter. Full development takes from 5 to 8 weeks, depending on the season and type of fruit infested (Shehata et al., 2008). The most important parameters influencing the population dynamics of B. zonata are the favourable environmental conditions for reproduction and survival, and host sequence, suitability and availability. Several generations per year are completed under favourable conditions. In Pakistan, the peach fruit fly complete 8-9 generations per year in the coastal plains, whereas only two generations are completed in 5 months in northern areas (Hussain, 1995). At Giza Governatorate (Egypt), seven overlapping generations were recorded from March to November; the first generation is the longest, occurring from March to May-June, whereas summer generations lasted 4-6 weeks. Populations are usually at their lowest level at the end of the winter due to the slowdown or cessation of development. It may take several generations are needed to reach the highest population density, which was observed during the 5th generation at the end of August (Farag et al., 2009). Influence CLIMATIC FACTORS AND OF HOSTS Climate plays a critical role as the determining factor of the peach fruit fly abundance, influencing development and survival, therefore limiting its geographical range. The wide distribution of B. zonata indicates a considerable degree of environmental plasticity. Although the immature stages of Bactrocera sp. can survive short periods of high (>30 °C) or low temperatures ( The temperature is the most important factor determining developmental rates of immatures and adult maturation rates. The duration of the peach fruit fly lifecycle is mainly affected by temperature and host fruit species. Development ceases in all stages below 12 °C; larvae and pupae are more resistant to cold weather conditions. The developmental thresholds of pre-imaginal stages of a peach fruit fly population in Reunion were determined at constant temperatures. Lower thresholds of eggs, larvae and pupae ranged from 12.6 to 12.8 °C, which were higher than those of C. capitata (10.2-11.6 °C). The thermal units required for the development of pre-imaginal stages were estimated in 224 degree day units (Duyck et al., 2004). However, in Egypt, the lower temperature threshold was determined as 11.84 °C and the thermal units required to complete a generation (from egg to egg) were 487 degree days (Sharaf El-Din et al., 2007). Differences on lower developmental thresholds might be due to the different strains and the larval food. However, the existence of cold-hardening ecotypes of the pest can not be ruled out. The upper temperature threshold was estimated as higher than 35 °C (Qureshi et al., 1993; Duyck et al., 2004). The optimal temperatures for development and survival of pre-imaginal stages occurs at 25-30 °C. The duration of the pre-ovipostion period ranged from 23 days at 20 °C to 8.4 days at 30 °C. Fecundity and adult longevity were optimal at 25 °C (Qureshi et al., 1993). Reliable temperature thresholds and thermal constants appropriate for each life stage allow the development of phonological models to predict the duration of the life cycle of the peach fruit fly under various climatic conditions. On the basis of thermal units, expressed as cumulative degree days, a number of 6, 7 and 8 annual generations have been predicted in North Sinai, El Beheira and Asyout (Egypt), respectively (Khalil et al., 2010). Host quality strongly affects development time and survival of pre-imaginal stages and the reproductive parameters of adults. Peach, guava and mango were the most suitable fruits for larval development and fecundity with respect to other fruit species (e.g. apple, pear, plum, orange) (Hussain, 1995). Climatic factors and host suitability influence coexistence of tephritid fruit flies in some areas. The peach fruit fly was detected in Reunion in 1991 and appears to be displacing C. capitata in warm and dry areas. Ceratitis capitata and B. zonata attack almost the same fruit species, indicating that species niche partitioning is determined by climatic factors rather than host range (Duyck et al., 2008). The peach fruit fly showed displacement ability also over B. dorsalis and Carpomyia vesuviana Costa in some areas of its native geographical range (Agarwal and Kapoor, 1986). POTENTIAL GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN The potential distribution of the peach fruit fly in the Mediterranean basin has been modelled/predicted with CLIMEX. Based on climatic data, this software compares the geographical distribution of a species in the native area and predict its potential geographical range in other continents using the Compare Locations function (Sutherst et al., 2007). The model combines a weekly population growth index (in response of temperature, rainfall and relative humidity) with 4 stress indices (cold, hot, wet and dry) into an Ecoclimatic Index (EI), which indicates the potential propagation and persistence of the species as determined by climate. A database of 30-year climatic data for meteorological stations irregularly located in the Mediterranean basin was used. Climatic parameters used were modified from available data of other tephritid fruit flies (C. capitata and B. dorsalis) (Vera et al., 2002; Stephens et al., 2007), also considering the climatic requirements of B. zonata (Duyck et al., 2004). Then, values were adjusted to fit the distribution of B. zonata in Egypt. To provide a more realistic prediction of the pest range, the Irrigation option in CLIMEX was used. Figure 1 shows a tentative distribution map of B. zonata based on Ecoclimatic Index. Under current climate conditions, the model predicts the establishment and persistenc e of the peach fruit fly in coastal areas of North Africa and Near East. The suitability of European countries to B. zonata establishment was limited to southern areas of Portugal, Spain, Greece and all the main Mediterranean islands (Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and Crete). The potential geographical distribution of the peach fruit fly appears to be narrower than that of C. capitata, which is more adapted to cool temperatures. Moreover, the predicted range of B. zonata seems to coincide with most of the Mediterranean citrus-growing areas. CONTROL METHODS Biological control of the peach fruit fly is ineffective, because young larvae feed into the fruit flesh and are protected from parasitoids. The most common hymenopterous parasitoids recovered from B. zonata in the native area are the braconid Diachasmimorpha longicaudatus (Ashmead) and the eulophid Aceratoneuromyia indica (Silvestri) (Kapoor 1993). In Egypt, Dirhinus giffardii Silvestri (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae) and the pteromalids Spalangia cameroni Perkins and Pachycrepoideus vindemiae Rondani have been recorded on peach fruit fly pupae (Badr El-Sabah and Afia, 2004). Recently, biological control efforts have been focused on augmentative release of D. longicaudatus and Fopius arisanus (Sonan) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) (Rousse et al., 2006). Bactrocera zonata males are attracted to citronella oil and to its active compound methyl eugenol (Howlett, 1915). This parapheromone, which is present in many plants, has both olfactory and phagostimulatory action and attracts peach fruit fly males from up to 800 m (Roomi et al., 1993). Methyl eugenol proved to be very effective in early detection of peach fruit fly males and has been used in several suppression programs (Qureshi et al., 1981; Sookar et al., 2006). The male annihilation technique (MAT) employs methyl eugenol to attract most of the males of B. zonata populations. Extermination of males in a population severely reduces the frequency of fertile matings, minimizing the chances of successful reproduction and consequently lowering the infestation on fruits. Peach fruit fly males are caught/killed by plastic traps baited with methyl eugenol (mass trapping technique) or attracted to wooden blocks soaked with parapheromone and insecticide (attract and kill technique). MAT is the standard technique to eradicate the peach fruit fly from areas newly-invaded areas and has successfully been applied in several eradication programs (California, Israel) (Spaugy, 1988; EPPO, 2008). A large eradication program based on the massive use of bait stations (wooden blocks) has been very successful in Egypt: B. zonata populations have been reduced about 4-fold from 2008 to 2009 in all the countrys fruit-producing areas (FAO/IAEA, 2010). A number of insecticides used against fruit flies are effective, flexible and low toxic to non-target arthropods. In the European Union, chemicals registered against the medfly include organophosphates (chlorpyrifos-methyl and phosmet) and pyrethroids (lambda-cyhalothrin and deltamethrin). In addition, some naturally-derived insecticide are accepted in organic agriculture, such as spinosad, that is less toxic to beneficials than traditional insecticides, and a Neem formulation/azadirachtin, that showed sterilant and oviposition deterrent activities on the peach fruit fly (Mahmoud and Shoeib, 2008). All these compounds are non-systemic, therefore control treatments are targeted to kill adults and prevent egg-laying in the fruit. Bait applications integrate insecticide and attractant formulations to lure male and female adult fruit flies. The most effective control strategy worldwide against fruit flies consists in bait sprays of malathion mixed with hydrolysed protein acting as attractants and phagostimulants. However, malathion has recently been excluded from the list of plant protection products allowed in the European Union, which has also prohibited importation of fruits with malathion residues. Laboratory experiments carried out in Egypt showed that spinosad might effectively replace malathion in bait applications against the peach fruit fly (El-Aw et al., 2008). Bait insecticides are sprayed in spots on the foliage of host plants by ground or aerial applications. Studies have been carried out to control B. zonata with the sterile insect technique (SIT) (Qureshi et al., 1974), that is widely used in eradication programs against C. capitata and B. dorsalis. However, this technique has never been adopted in the field against the peach fruit fly. The establishment of the peach fruit fly in Mediterranean countries would prevent export of fruits and vegetables to countries with quarantine regulations or be made conform to their rules and restrictions. Fruit fumigation with methyl bromide is still adopted in several countries, but its use may soon be prohibited. Therefore, alternative fruit sanitation techniques based on temperature manipulation have been developed. Cold treatments consist in holding export products at constant temperatures for a time period sufficient to ensure death of the most resistant peach fruit fly life stages (eggs and larvae). Alternatively, fruits can be disinfested with high temperature treatments (water dips, dry or vapour heat, forced hair). Heat treatments can cause fruit injury and alteration of colour, aroma, flavour or texture in some citrus fruits. CONCLUSIONS The host-plant range of the peach fruit fly is broad, with more than 40 plant species verified as hosts in ; therefore, potential hosts are abundant in the diverse, cultivated and uncultivated flora of Mediterranean region and pose the eventuality of peach fruit fly population cycling. This cycling is characterized by different host-plant species sequentially serving as fruit fly reproductive hosts for parts of the year. Given the lack of diapause in this frugivorous tephritid and its wide host range, population cycling in alternate hosts could play a major role in the potential establishment of Bz and future economic depredations of exotic fruit flies such as the peach fruit fly in Mediterranean region. Peach fruit fly is a generalist tephritid species infesting many host species throughout the entire geographical range. Locally these generalists may utilize only a few of their potential host species. However, no absolute statement about plant susceptibility can be made. A good host in one geographic location may not be as good a host in another, and vice versa, as slight environmental changes may occur that influence the plants desirability as a host. In addition, it is important to analyze the plant species in a given area to identify the competing host range. A desirable host in one area may be less desirable in another because a better host exists. The population dynamics of such tephritid species are also susceptible to fluctuations in community attributes, i.e., plant diversity, interspecific interactions, and abiotic factors. These allow such tephritids to become pestiferous in some areas, but barely noticeable in other areas, or subject them to localized extinction in still other areas Rapid transport of infested host fruits through cargo, personal luggage, and mail has complicated efforts to contain peach fruit fly within its present distribution. Efforts should be made to improve exclusion, prevention, detection, and control practices against peah fruit fly, with the aim of decreasing the risk of introduction. Since eradication efforts can be extremely difficult and expensive when peach fruit fly populations become well established, such efforts are started as soon as possible after introductions are detected. Crop yield reductions, control measures, handling processes, and quarantine restrictions on commodity movement are expenses associated with peach fruit fly infestations. Appropriate phytosanitary measures should be applied to avoid the invasion and establishment of these exotic pests in the Mediterranean region. We believe that Mediterranean countries can no longer ignore the inevitability of recurrent peach fruit fly populations. The Mediterranean countries must prepare to deal with the eventuality and consequences of permanent peach fruit fly populations. Economic importance Impact of peach fruit fly on agriculture Peach fruit fly can have a direct impact on agricultural production in Mediterranean area. One estimate of the direct impact of peach fruit fly in Egypt was million euros, which did not include the costs or impacts of insecticide use to control this pest. A great number of crops in the Mediterranean countries are threatened by the introduction of this pest: including apple, apricot, peach, fig, grapefruit, nectarine, orange, peach, pear, persimmon, plum, pomegranate, tangerine. While the direct loss of production of fruit fly host products can have a significant impact on Mediterranean agriculture, perhaps a more important impact is the loss of potential production and markets due to the threat of fruit flies and the high economic costs for their control. A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams | Analysis A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams | Analysis A Streetcar Named Desire From time to time in life, there are periods when one is faced with conflicts and more often, it does not matter how hard one tries, you just cant fix things and you end up feeling like a broken record. A Streetcar Named Desire focuses on an inconsolable woman called Blanche Dubois. Blanche is a victim of herself and her lifestyle as much as she is the victim of an unfair state of affairs. There are occurrences in her life that she could have handled better ad therefore avoided calamity, but there are as well instances where, there was nothing she could do but play along to the tragic up folding events in her eventful life. First she is nurtured in Old South upper-class traditions, she lived in a classy manner in the family homestead Belle Reve, wedded a man she immensely loved, and followed a professional career as an English teacher. From the beginning of the play, it is forthcoming that she is the victim of her lifestyle, and not a conqueror. The individual Blanche is at present can be covered back to a solitary day in her epic past. Inside only some hours for the duration of this single day, her life would be altered completely. Blanche unexpectedly but walked in on her companion, Allan Grey, in bed having intimacy with another male. She afterwards went to a bar to have a drink with her cheating spouse and his homosexual partner; there she drunkenly told Allan that she was sickened by him. Allan flees the room in serious embarrassment from Blanches utterances and turns a revolver he had on his mouth, she hears him commit suicide in the exterior of the bar they were drinking. Any person would be unba lanced after so mucch pandemonium and distress in such a short period. Argument is fronted that since Blanche had inferred to Allan as disgusting, he committed suicide and this makes Blanche the aggressor and not the victim she almost paints herself to be. Allans deeds towards his suicide were totally his and Blanche could not manage to prevent them. It is obvious that neither of the couple could grip the confusion manifesting at the time and handled them in divergent ways. Blanche was just the fatality of the awful state of affairs that affected the love of her life. Without her dearly loved Allan, Blanche ultimately needed love. All the men Blanche would charm in seduction were because she wanted to mend the emptiness in her heart. This was however not the truthful way to manage affairs and if she had gotten help she could properly have dealt with the pain of her husbands tragic demise. Unfortunately Blanche never had that chance, when she loses her familys plantation, Belle Reve, she is forced to live in Laurel, where she engages in prostitution for the reason that she has no other way of making money to help fend for her personal upkeep. During this tumultuous period, she resides in hotel Flamingo and men seeking sexual pleasures in exchange for money come up to her room every nighttime. Promiscuous sexual relations with men got terribly out of control out of hand. Every time one sexual relation ended, a new one budded the next day. This made her to cement a lousy reputation in the small township of Laurel, Mississippi. Understanding that she was still smarting from the demise of her suicidal husband and acknowledging that the various men could not patch up her inconsolable heart, she turned to drinking to escape her misery. Haphazard alcohol drinking and one-night stands eventually makes Blanche to find herself lonely and with nowhere to go. In order to improve her miserable life and acquire a new character, Blanche makes a decision to begin afresh in Elysian Fields, New Orleans with her young sister, Stella and her bad-mannered husband Stanley Kowalski. Feigning innocence and perfection, to cover up her inadequacies back home is not sufficient as Stellas husband can see right through her. Stanley exposes her precedent behavior and devastates the fresh life she has embarked on in New Orleans she again is back where she began. Blanche is victim to Stanleys insensitive mistreatment. Not oblivious to the truth that they had not once got along, had Stanley not exposed her secrets, she might just have brilliantly started a fresh, improved life. Only to worsen her life further, she becomes the victim of serious sexual assault to the churlish Stanley. If she was not mentally and emotionally unbalanced minded before, Blanche is absolutely now. Stanley was crooked and should not have handled her the way he did, while she was obvi ously in such an unselfconfident shape. Due to her disturbing past and no prospects to seek healthy help, Blanche succumbs to mistreatment and becomes the victim to additional situations than she had to all through the routes of her life. In the closing stages of A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is taken to mental establishment where it is only hopeful she may get the necessary assistance to her physical, emotional and mental state. She has suffered too much and respite is necessary for her soul.